


There is Always Hope

by Zhie



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bunniverse, F/M, Gen, Questions, The Valar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9443492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhie/pseuds/Zhie
Summary: Nessa asks Fingon what one wish he would request be granted.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted at Haldir Lovers on January 4, 2011 (ha ha ha six years ago -_- ) as "Aegnor story without a title (G rating?)"
> 
> And then I forgot about it. o.o
> 
> This happens more often than it should.
> 
> Here's the original header:
> 
> No title, unbetaed, short, and G-rating because it didn't go where it was supposed to or even have the right characters in it. 
> 
> Title: To be determined  
> Author: Zhie  
> Summary: Nessa asks Fingon what one wish he would request be granted.  
> Characters: Nessa, Fingon, with mention of Aegnor and Andreth  
> Disclaimer: Do not own middle-earth or the characters - btw, Happy Birthday, Professor!  
> Notes: Bunniverse, but can be read as stand-alone.
> 
> I only found it because I was searching for the first two parts of Starry Night, and this showed up instead. (And I still don't know where Starry Night is... I need someone to wrangle my fics for me.)
> 
> I have since edited it (1/23/2017) and named it (yay!) and added additional content. Enjoy! (And let me know if you find Starry Night somewhere...)

“If I could grant to you one wish, little one, any desire that you have, what would it be, my pet?” 

It was something of a game that Nessa played with Fingon. He had been her “project” (words from her brother) during the years when the trees kept the lands lit, and now that he had been reborn, Orome dubbed him her pet. The title received a sneer from Fingon when it came from the hunter’s lips, but when addressed by Nessa as such, Fingon allowed it, even perhaps enjoyed that he still held the favor of the Valië after all that happened in the years between.

There was dancing, as there had been when she first took an interest in the Elf, plus riding and shooting -- though now, there was little hunting. Sometimes, if it was humid and warm enough, Fingon would swim while Nessa and her maidens sat on the shore and braided their hair with flowers. 

At times when they would all rest from their dancing or deerback riding through the forest, they would sit on the silken grass beneath the yew trees. As they stared up through the branches into the starry night, she would ask him questions. Questions that she thought up, and questions her maidens whispered to her and that Nessa would present to Fingon. Questions, that if asked of her own kin and kind, would go inexplicably unanswered. But then, how can one with such power have such need for desires when so much can be granted with little challenge?

Fingon tilted his head to the side and stretched his back, his arm bent, hand behind his neck to rub away the tense torment in his muscles. He had not the same stamina the great Valië did, nor did he come close to the energy of the Maiar who followed her, for if so there would be no need for rest. But without need for rest, there would be no questions, and certainly no insightful answers. Fingon thought the topic over, and asked, “Do you mean, what is the greatest desire of my own, or ultimately what is the one thing I wish for the most?”

Nessa smiled. “They may very well be the same.”

Fingon shook his head, and stretched out on the ground, his arms behind the back of his head. He looked up beyond the leaves that shook and trembled and waited for the oncoming autumn to whisk them away. “My own desires seem trifling and rather arrogant, knowing the desires of others.”

This partial answer made Nessa ever more curious, and she prodded him to tell her more. He gently refused, but she pressed again. He blinked up at the sky without saying a word. Now a few of Nessa’s wily maidens poked at him with long-stemmed flowers, but he did little more than twitch his nose and push the petals away if they blocked his view. 

Finally, as the stars grew brighter and the dark of the night deepened, and Fingon wearied for his bed, he indulged upon her an answer, but perhaps not the one she had expected. “My greatest desire,” he said in his even and sure voice, “is to stand upon Taniquetil, and there, on the holiest of ground, on a clear morning in winter with the fresh snow fallen upon the ground, bear witness to the marriage of Aegnor and Andreth.”

Nessa sat in silence, puzzled for some time, and then asked, “I had expected that you, alone, near forgotten as you feel you are, would ask for something. More specifically for someone. Someone closer to your own heart.” She plucked the petals from a purple hydrangea bloom, and sprinkled them over Fingon’s chest. “Perhaps someone I know. Perhaps someone I might speak to about you?”

Some part of Fingon’s soul wished for just what Nessa seemed to offer. Like a forbidden golden fruit, it was as if she expected that her tease would cause a name to tumble from his lips. But Fingon held onto the answer, and he repeated it to her. “There would be nothing more beautiful to me than to finally see two souls united who have no possible hope, as I still do. And perhaps for that, I am spoiled. That I might still have a glimmer of a chance for what I wish for keeps me ever going forward. Yet Aegnor and Andreth pressed on despite regrets, and without askance for pity. Two halves of a whole, but cruelly forged to never be reforged as one. For them, their chance was gone before they even had hope.”


End file.
